“No,” Rogers said testily. He’d grown quite used to living part of his day in zero gravity, as a matter of fact, and now he hardly ever ran into walls. He had even taught Cadet to pee outside of the room, which helped him avoid wayward globules of cat urine. “I’m not losing my mind, Cynthia. We just can’t talk about it here.”

In fact, he wasn’t sure they could talk about it anywhere. Deet had revealed that most of the areas on the ship were bugged, which explained all kinds of things about the propaganda posters and the devices that Deet had found previously. The droids had been listening to every word he’d said since he’d gotten back aboard the Flagship. But what did they do with all that useless chatter?

“Well, where can we talk about it?” the Viking asked, her gruff voice cutting through Rogers’ rapid and frantic train of thought. “You left the mess hall looking like you were about to shit your pants.”

Rogers wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t about to do just that. In reality, he didn’t know what droids were trying to do with all of this false information and this spying, but he didn’t feel comfortable about it at all. From what Deet had told him so far, it was clear that the droids weren’t acting under the orders of anyone on this ship.

“Hey, are you listening to me?” the Viking said. She grabbed him roughly by the arm, creating the same result as if Rogers had run directly into a brick wall. He stopped—well, he sort of flailed around and would have fallen over if not for the iron grip on his arm. “What’s your problem, metalhead?”

Rogers looked at the Viking, his lips trembling. Aside from being excited at getting a little roughed up, his thoughts were already completely addled. How was he going to explain to all of them what he’d learned without tipping the droids off ? He still didn’t even really know everything that Deet had learned.

“It’s just . . .” he began. “I can’t . . . Look, this isn’t easy, alright? Give me a second. And let go of me or I am never going to be able to think straight!”

The Viking released him reluctantly, and Rogers shook out his uniform. He could feel the impression of her bearlike grip on his arm pulsating on his skin, tingling like someone had just applied a love tincture to his flesh. Taking a deep breath, he tried to push thoughts of being rescued from burning rooms from his mind and focus on the very serious task at hand.

“Deet . . . had a bad meal.”

“Your robot has indigestion?” Mailn said.

“No,” Rogers said. He looked at her intently, opening his eyes wide. “Deet had a bad meal in the mess hall.” He winked. “As in he perhaps ate something that doesn’t agree with him.” Rogers winked again.

“I think he’s having a seizure,” McSchmidt said.